News Release Number: STScI-1991-01

Hubble Space Telescope Resolves Braided Galactic Jet

January 15, 1991: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a detailed view of a ten thousand light-year
long jet of plasma which has been ejected from the core of a galaxy 270 million light-years
away. Observations made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC)
reveal that the jet has an unusual braided structure, like a twisted pair of wires. "This is
the first time that such a structure has been seen in an optical jet," says F. Duccio Macchetto,
ESA's Principal Investigator on the FOC and Head of the Science Programs Division at the
Space Telescope Science Institute.